SDCC 09: LOST PLANET 2 is a Whole New Game

The sequel to the sleeper hit Lost Planet was the subject of a small but spirited panel Friday ay Comic-Con International: San Diego. Capcom Senior Director of Creative Services and Events Francis Mao moderated a panel of one: Lost Planet 2 producer Jun Takeuchi, who joked through his translator that he’d always been amazed at the diversity of the United States, but never until his first Comic-Con did he know it also included aliens.

Mao then ran the E3 “Episode 2” trailer which teased the action of a squad of four men fighting their way though a dockyard army, killing everyone, including a giant bug dispatched with the use of a rail-mounted artillery shot to the mouth.

Takeuchi lamented that the trailer doesn’t tell the game’s story, and they’ll have more to tell in the fall, but revealed that the game will be broken into six episodes on disk. The protagonist of LP1 will not be involved, instead players will control “disparate groups of Snow Pirates” ten years after the events of the first game. He went on to say that the world of E.D.N. 3 has undergone massive climate change, bringing jungle and city levels into the mix. There will also be new weapons, new “VS” walking tanks and boss battles on a massive scale.

With prompting from Mao, Takeuchi said he was really proud of LP2’s four-player co-op play, and that AI bots can fill in empty slots if you want to play alone. Also he described how the ‘massive’ bosses each have their own AI and won’t follow a track or a script, players can even go inside the giant creatures to do damage before being expunged through the creature’s “back door.”

Takeuchi described how deep the character customization will be, with dozens of available heads, arms, legs, torsos and backpacks for players to work with, and that LP2 will be the first game to use Capcom’s new MT Framework 2.0, the next-gen of the software that was used to create Resident Evil 5.

Mao then brought up a couple of gamers who distinguished themselves on the show floor demo to play along with some Capcom staffers against the ‘giant salamander’ boss four on one. After demoing the new plasma (stun), gum (sticky bomb) and disk (Frisbee like) grenades, they showed of the support weapons that would buff allies and a three player walking tank mount. The lead player then let himself be swallowed by the creature and fought with it’s heart before being ‘excreted,' an occurrence that brought laughter, applause and a shout of “let’s see Halo do that” from Mao.

After the demo and a plea for pre-orders, it was time for questions.

-Will the story be accessible if you haven’t played LP1? Takeuchi assured that it will be, and that there is going to be an “episode zero” that will fill in the back-story and serve as a tutorial.

-A fan asked what Takeuchi was most proud of about LP2, and he replied the four player co-op play, and the visuals

-Will LP2’s character’s be as involved as the protagonist of LP1? Takeuchi replied that each of the six episodes will have a main character and tell their own story which will combine at the end.

-Other game play modes and side quests? There will be extra modes but they can’t say more at this point.

-A question about how many customization parts will have to be unlocked via play? Takeuchi said that they hadn’t decided, but there will be plenty at the start regardless.